Former Radio One disc jockey Dave Lee Travis has told his trial he is “astonished” at sex offence allegations against him and told jurors he is a “normal, decent human being”.

Becoming increasingly angry as he was cross-examined on Friday, Mr Travis, from Mentmore, denied indecently assaulting 10 women and sexually assaulting another in incidents dating back to 1976 and the height of his fame.

“Suddenly I’m a great predator,” he told jurors at London’s Southwark Crown Court. “These things did not happen. I don’t know how I can convince you that they did not happen. I’m a normal, decent human being. I play jokes on people. I cuddle people. And if there have been some sexual interactions in the past, it’s been consensual.

“It’s been suggested that women threw themselves at me – thank God most of them missed.”

Appearing under his birth name David Griffin, the 68-year-old, also became annoyed when questioned by prosecutor Miranda Moore QC about claims he grabbed a female journalist’s breasts after asking her to pose for suggestive photographs.

“I’m a professional in my photographic life. I’m a professional in my broadcasting life.

“I do not want to touch the breasts of anybody, let alone anybody who works for the press. That would be suicide.

“I have not been groping people for 40 years,” he said.

Ms Moore said: “It’s got you written all over it Mr Griffin. Because you’ve been doing it for years and getting away with it.”

The defendant, known as DLT, replied: “I’ve not been doing it for years. I’ve not been getting away with it.”

Mr Travis denies 13 indecent assaults and one sexual assault. The charges relate to allegations from when he was working as a BBC DJ, as a broadcaster with Classic Gold radio, while appearing on Top Of The Pops and when starring in panto.

Ms Moore put it to Mr Travis: “The way you have behaved over the last 40 years, since (the first victim) in 1973 through to (the final victim) in 2008, is that you had just done it and thought, ‘I could do that, I’ll get away with it’.”

Asked why the alleged victims would have invented their claims, Mr Travis suggested there were “umpteen reasons”, including that they had “dreamt” them.

“I’m trying to look at alternatives,” Mr Travis said.

He told jurors that if one of the victims had got confused by a dream, “I would call her an unfortunate person who’s had some sort of a mental lapse in terms of not being able to tell the difference between reality and nonsense”.

He also said Twitter and Facebook could be to blame for the women coming forward with similar stories.

“I’m saying that is one of many possibilities and you can’t go through them all,” Mr Travis added.

Ms Moore said: “The other possibility, of course, is that they’re telling the truth and you’re telling lies.”

Mr Travis replied: “Absolutely, it’s their word against mine. This is what this is all about.”

Referring to claims by a journalist that he had a “sleazy” photograph of a celebrity on his wall, Mr Travis told the court that he displays photographs he has taken of famous people in his home.

They included TV hosts Bob Monkhouse, Graham Norton and Linda Lusardi, Pink Panther actor Burt Kwouk, model Nell McAndrew and Lord Lichfield. He also said he took a photograph of singer Kim Wilde “in black leather attached to a policeman”.

During re-examination by Stephen Vullo, for the defence, Mr Travis was asked again about his comments that things were “different” in the 1970s and 1980s.

He repeated that his words had been taken out of context and he had not been referring to his alleged victims’ claims.

He told jurors: “I was saying that it was different in those days and that people would go around in offices and they would pat a girl on the bottom or something like that.

“I’m not saying it’s right to have done it then or now.

“Women had to put up with that and that was a shame and if they complained they’d be laughed at in a lot of cases.”

After completing his evidence, which lasted a total of three days, Travis left his seat in the witness box.

Wearing a grey woollen blazer and patterned tie, he returned to the dock from where he listened to proceedings with the aid of headphones.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Leighton Buzzard Observer provides news, events and sport features from the Leighton Buzzard area. For the best up to date information relating to Leighton Buzzard and the surrounding areas visit us at Leighton Buzzard Observer regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Leighton Buzzard Observer requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.